France's new daily COVID-19 cases rose by at least 25,000 for the sixth time in 12 days on Wednesday and the number of people hospitalised for the disease shot up by more than 700 for the third day in a row, suggesting the partial curfew still has to produce effects.
The resurgence of the pandemic is such that the government will likely announce a geographical extension of the curfew, imposed since Saturday on Paris and eight other major cities from 2100 to 0600.
Health experts say it takes generally two weeks for such measures to be visible in the containment of the virus.
Health authorities reported 26,676 new COVID-19 infections, up from Tuesday's 20,468 but below the all-time high of 32,427 reached on Saturday.
The cumulative number of cases now totals 957,421 and, given the current seven-day moving average of 25,480, it is most likely France will have gone beyond the one million cases milestone by the end of the week, becoming the second Western European nation to do so after Spain.
The number of people in France who have died from COVID-19 infections rose by 163, to 34,048, versus a months-high seven-day moving average of 144.
The number of people hospitalised for COVID-19 has gone beyond the 13,000 threshold for the first time since June 6.
(Reporting by Benoit Van Overstraeten; Editing by Chris Reese and Alexandra Hudson)
